Finding Cmm Technicians

I don't know if there is a correlation or not, but its seems as though with increased productivity and through-put, quality inspection is becoming more and more of a bottle neck. To further the issue, there is a short list of people signed up to be a CMM programmer. I know of a few shops around town dying for a CMM guy but am curious to how its looking on a global scale and what people are doing to remedy the issue.

This while I sit and wait for an opening on the CMM for my first piece.......

We have 2 Zeiss Conturas and 2 Brown & Sharpe Reflexes in our inspection room. We have a couple B&S Reflexes on the floor but they aren't in a temperature-controlled environment and are for reference only or situations where temperature isn't going to matter. Then there's the big optical comparator and profilometer and such. But for CMMs..

Anyone can step up and use either of the Reflexes. The Conturas are only used by the inspection programmer/techs. We used to have 2, and when inspection was slow, the one guy would go back on the floor and set up and run VMCs. He was a machinist first. Great asset to inspecting parts 'wisely'. There's not much to help out with lots of one-offs that need programming - limited manpower.

But what we do for repeat jobs is to create 'setup sheets' for one of the Conturas. We have aluminum grid plates with helicoils in all the holes ~2" o.c. ea. way iirc. Or at least, helicoils in the holes that have been needed so far. We have a "set up sheet" for parts that we run often, or need full inspection reports often. It includes photos of "how to set the part up" on the grid plate, including location, orientation, what fixturing to use, where, and shows where the part is hot glued, if needed. The program is located in a known location. So anyone comfortable using a Windows computer can open it up, load it in the Calypso software, and run it. We've trained a handful of people to do so, I believe.

This way, a CMM Tech is not needed for high-frequency parts and more autonomy can be given to the machinists to keep on truckin' and not have a machine tied up, set up and fixtured to run parts, but is dead-in-the-water waiting for inspection to verify the part and given them the go-ahead on running out the rest of the job.

One-offs suck. For the customers I manage, I just try to make sure I have the models ready to go before the job even hits the floor. I shoot an email to the CMM Programmer(s) with drawing and model location and when they can expect to start seeing parts. They do a good job managing their time and having shit ready to go. Programs are made ahead of time so when the part is ready, they just set it up, touch off on it, and go.

ETA: Inspection is still, at times, a terrible bottle neck for us, as well. It's frustrating because it's the last place you want to burn someone out on mega-overtime, and the last place you want to rush.

Grow your own CMM techs and contract outside help when there's a big workload, ie, a whole family of new parts you need programmed.

Of course, then you have to make sure the contract guy does inspection "your way", but a good guy is worth his weight in gold. I've found that outside help, brought in to help on a specific job, is more productive some times because they don't get pulled off to support other jobs.

How does one become a CMM tech/operator? Is there a training program? I think I would enjoy doing that work, but do not know how to find training?

Karl_Kunkle said:

How does one become a CMM tech/operator? Is there a training program? I think I would enjoy doing that work, but do not know how to find training?

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I think it took all of a couple hours to learn the basics of PC-DMIS years back on our B&S. Enough to inspect some parts and get numbers back to the floor. If you understand how to align the part properly, the rest is simple.

allloutmx said:

I don't know if there is a correlation or not, but its seems as though with increased productivity and through-put, quality inspection is becoming more and more of a bottle neck. To further the issue, there is a short list of people signed up to be a CMM programmer. I know of a few shops around town dying for a CMM guy but am curious to how its looking on a global scale and what people are doing to remedy the issue.

This while I sit and wait for an opening on the CMM for my first piece.......

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Strange how different countries do things. Here (Denmark) when a course within industry is deemed necessary then the relevant employers union and trade union get together and fund the cost often with substantial financial aid from the government. For all participating in a course it's free. If someone unemployed then the government pays and if the person participating is employed then their company pays their wages for the duration. There is though usually a minimum requirement of around 10 "students" for these special courses.

The philosophy behind that is the same as not only are colleges and universities free but students are paid as the issue is to have the best educated population possible to compete in the global "battle". The belief is that the "investment" pays off long term.

Education for all -The official website of Denmark

Overview of the Danish Education System - Ministry of Education

The Danish education system ? Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet

Here's statistics on why we think it helps

International trade: Key Figures - Statistics Denmark

That goes on here too Gordon, particularly in Houston as of late. (Or says the press)

A real issue is the US economy is much larger and in some ways more free flowing than Euro economies.

Back to the OPs point - running a CMM does seem like a job where what you need is a programmer rather than a machinist, aside from the "wise inspection" point raised above. Sadly, really skilled computer programmers are in shorter supply than almost anybody - but look at the bright side, you are only competing with Google, Amazon, and every bank in the world to hire the best ones.

Which means "find a way to develop the relevent talent locally" is probably the only practical scheme most places.

bryan_machine said:

Back to the OPs point - running a CMM does seem like a job where what you need is a programmer rather than a machinist,

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Not sure where you came up with that idea. I was a Tool Maker when I learned 20yrs ago.. What you need is someone who has (or can learn) an understanding of GD&T, and is competent in reading a part print to understand how to align the piece to accurately report the measured values.

Nothing worse than the CMM guy who comes running back with the report that everything is out 20mm

I came up with it by observing that programming a CMM is almost all positions, alignment, math. Physical forces, tool wear, tool deflection, and the like aren't issues. So somebody with a *good* abstract understanding (which includes understanding origins and the like) should be able to do it.
[Note that I was systems programmer by trade for a long time, that may color my views...]

bryan_machine said:

That goes on here too Gordon, particularly in Houston as of late. (Or says the press)

A real issue is the US economy is much larger and in some ways more free flowing than Euro economies.

Back to the OPs point - running a CMM does seem like a job where what you need is a programmer rather than a machinist, aside from the "wise inspection" point raised above. Sadly, really skilled computer programmers are in shorter supply than almost anybody - but look at the bright side, you are only competing with Google, Amazon, and every bank in the world to hire the best ones.

Which means "find a way to develop the relevent talent locally" is probably the only practical scheme most places.

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It was a response to ".... but am curious to how its looking on a global scale and what people are doing to remedy the issue." so not as OT as could be thought.

As far as I know the various US states have a good degree of "independence" so if you do something similar in Texas then perhaps other states that don't could learn. I visited a technical school in Texas 2 years ago and my impression was that funding was often a major problem. Of course the trick in Texas would be to get that kind of initiative not to be regarded as "socialism". LOL

I'm wondering why you don think the EU economy isn't "free flowing". Some think it is too much. However the EU does have a population of over 500 million in the 28 EU countries. Europe has a bit over 700 million.

allloutmx said:

This while I sit and wait for an opening on the CMM for my first piece.......

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Simply not enough cmm time available?
You fix this by buying more machines.
Adding lathe operators or programmers does not fix a basic problem of not having enough lathes in the building.
An entry level skill here. You learn inspection before you get to run anything serious.
How does adding more techs help solve your problem?
Bob

We have plenty of equipment... The machine I am waiting for is down, im still waiting on a first article report for a part I ran teo weeks ago because the tech is working on a "hotter" job.

I think we have 5 manual B&S Reflex on the floor. 5 or 6 programmable cmms in the lab. Certain parts are too fussy or too inefficient to run on the manual cmms.

More so in our case... Its finding the people for the job, but that can also be said for every other dept in the shop. I just feel as though quality is a dept that often get over looked yet it is quite possibly our biggest bottle neck when it comes to "throughput"

It is quite easy to overlook the quality department, since (typically) inspection is considered "overhead", rather than revenue-generating. Years ago, at a previous employer, the "powers that be" decided to come up with a bonus system, based on the number of units shipped per production line. At that time, I was in the Incoming Inspection department, and we were not eligible for the bonus program, even though we supported ALL the product lines. When the decision-makers were asked why we were left out, the answer they gave was that they "couldn't figure out how to calculate how inspection generated revenue". I kid you not.... Happily, I am no longer there, and neither are the so-called geniuses that came up with THAT plan.

Eric M said:

It is quite easy to overlook the quality department, since (typically) inspection is considered "overhead", rather than revenue-generating. Years ago, at a previous employer, the "powers that be" decided to come up with a bonus system, based on the number of units shipped per production line. At that time, I was in the Incoming Inspection department, and we were not eligible for the bonus program, even though we supported ALL the product lines. When the decision-makers were asked why we were left out, the answer they gave was that they "couldn't figure out how to calculate how inspection generated revenue". I kid you not.... Happily, I am no longer there, and neither are the so-called geniuses that came up with THAT plan.

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At one company where I was QC manager the purchasing manager was constantly praised for "buying cheap" while I was unpopular for using too many inspectors to check the incoming rubbish he bought. Like you the "powers that be" didn't seem to realize that buying cheap costs.

I've never yet known a case where bonuses for production and the expectation for good quality went hand in hand.

Gordon B. Clarke said:

I've never yet known a case where bonuses for production and the expectation for good quality went hand in hand.

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At Motorola there was a system that rebated warranty service budgets to the production organization.

The idea was that a certain amount was budgeted for warranty service every quarter.
If that amount was not spent on warranty service, it was distributed to the workers as a bonus for quality products.

- Leigh

The real Leigh said:

At Motorola there was a system that rebated warranty service budgets to the production organization.

The idea was that a certain amount was budgeted for warranty service every quarter.
If that amount was not spent on warranty service, it was distributed to the workers as a bonus for quality products.

- Leigh

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Now that I could see working successfully. Very similar as such to preventive maintenance. Avoid downtime with well kept machines.

I would though consider it more fair if all shared any bonus. Production workers aren't the only ones that make a product good.

Years ago there was a company here where the service engineers were fed up getting flak from irate customers when on customer repairs. The CO made the designers go with the service engineers to "sooth" the irate customers. It was surprising how many product drawings got changed quickly to make the products more foolproof. Most know that designers usually drag their heels to avoid changing a drawing even when necessary.

The continuing conundrum -- develop a product, put it out there, and then you need to decide where (exactly) to draw the line on what to fix and what to ignore. This is a very real issue with complex products, made in smaller volume for markets that aren't multi-million users in size. One the one hand, you cannot ignore user complaints (and your own service guys), then on the other hand, you have the costs of continuous re-design and engineering activity. This is often exacerbated by trying to beat the competitors to a certain opportunity. It's a fine line, sometimes.

That said, the engineering staff often need to have their noses rubbed in it. It can be quite effective in "promoting change", or in other terms, fixing their f**kups. It doesn't cost THAT much to "change a drawing", but the whole downstream costs from that action can be significant, where it involves a change in system BOM, changes in all assembly and subassembly drawings for the system, rework of service docs and re-training of service people, and then the testing of the fix to make sure something else didn't go south because of the change. And, of course, scrapping or modifying parts involved, and possible free retrofits either in field or factory, and maybe a change in software because of new hardware, and wherever it goes from there.

Production bonuses should be across the organization. That promotes team effort, and encourages individuals to take more interest in how the other departments are going to help them get their bonus (or not).

specfab said:

That said, the engineering staff often need to have their noses rubbed in it. It can be quite effective in "promoting change", or in other terms, fixing their f**kups.

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Quick! Somebody lock the thread before this gets really ugly

Seriously though, Engineers need to be more involved in what happens after they "throw it over the wall."

Back to topic: how big are these shops that have 10 CMMs? I thought we were a decent sized shop and we have 1 that is kept pretty busy.

Are these things that have to be inspected on a CMM? Not to knock them, but I have seen them cause all sorts of problems. They are an extremely useful tool when used for inspecting large lots of parts, etc. but I've always called them (tongue firmly in cheek) a "Can't Measure Much" - but maybe this comes down to the OPs original issue, and I've just never been around really good CMM operators. It seems like a lot of the time they get used purely because they can automatically generate reports and tracking information that would otherwise have to be entered manually after measuring with "basic" inspection equipment.

Then again, I'm no inspection guru, and my experience with CNC shops is somewhat limited as well - we do all prototype and short run stuff (generally less 50 pieces) so I'm curious about how the production shops use these.

A lot of my customers are larger shops and the problem is they hire CMM operators/programmers who aren't inspectors...
If you can't check a part on a surface plate before using the CMM then you shouldn't be allowed to run the little joysticks.

Oops -- guess I got a little OT; my product development/engineering hat was pulled down over my eyes.

I was also a bit curious about the number of CMMs mentioned in the OP's shop. My guess is that this is (perhaps) a structured process environment ,maybe ISO, which would drive the requirements. If it was me doing the setup and then having to sit on my hands for 2 weeks waiting for an inspection, I'd likely be using a manual CMM to check it myself, but that may not be an allowable activity.